Current Week

Busy Week

November 15, 2018

Hello everybody out
there in farm country. This radio
commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife
America, and Renewable Fuels Association.
They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and
prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

Last week was really busy. Three
days at the National Association of Farm Broadcasters Convention in Kansas
City. If you listen to farm radio, your
broadcaster was probably there. I’ve
been going for almost 40 years.

After Kansas City, I went to our farm.
Harvest is all in the bin. After
a whole year of work, and thousands of dollars spent, watching that golden corn
streaming in is so exciting.

The day harvest is done, we have to go to work on next year’s
crop. Be assured we have soil tests on
our fields. The tests will tell us how
much phosphate or potash must be applied.
Does the field need lime? We all
know that we have to eat the right food to be healthy. It is the same with crops. Feed the crop the right diet to make it
produce a big yield. It is the same with
our pigs. If you are going to “bring
home the bacon,” feed them right.

Most of the people in our county live in the city – so far removed from
the farm. We need better communication
back and forth. We’re seeing that
division in politics today.

Besides the corn and soybeans that we raise, we have baby pigs born
every day. It’s cold out in
Illinois. As for the mother sows, when
they get close to the farrowing they must be brought into the barn which is
heated. We want the mothers to be
comfortable and their babies safe. We
have all of these farm experts that think they know everything. The animal rights organizations are telling
us how to care for our animals – pigs, cows, chickens, everything. What do they know? Not much.
Farmers and ranchers have a powerful incentive to provide the best of
care. Animals that are not healthy and
happy will not gain weight and thrive as they should. Bad farmers lose money. We need to make money to stay in
business. It’s as simple as that.

I wanted to say a little bit about the scorching fires burning down
more than 200,000 acres in California and killing more than 40 people. We don’t know how many more will be found
burned to death. We wouldn’t have to
accept such devastation if we had better forest management. We need to manage our forests better. Over the years, especially in California,
environmental groups have pushed through all kinds of restrictive laws.

Trees die from drought. They are
not removed. They dry and are ideal for
firewood. We could thin the forests if
lumber companies were allowed to harvest the lumber. But NO – that might be bad for endangered
species.

Hopefully, these deadly fires will revive some common sense forest
management.

Previous Weeks

November 8 2018

Hello everybody out
there in farm country. This radio
commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife
America, and Renewable Fuels Association.
They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and
prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

Yes, I have something to say about the mid-term elections, and I will
get to that in a minute. But first, we
have been worried about the trade disputes with China and how…

November 1 2018

Hello everybody out
there in farm country. This radio
commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife
America, and Renewable Fuels Association.
They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and
prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

There has been a lot going on in the last week. I will focus on some of those topics.

One of the saddest happenings would be the deadly attack on the Tree of
Life Synagogue…

October 25 2018

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife America, and Renewable Fuels Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

Some good news – President Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires in November. Can they jump start a process to resolve our trade…

October 18 2018

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife America, and Renewable Fuels Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

When President Trump announced a new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, he said: “It is a very big deal for farmers. The new NAFTA, which is USMCA, has a very good ring.…

October 11 2018

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife America, and Renewable Fuels Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

I want to talk about a frog today, but before the frog hops up on the table – just a few words on the subject of trade. The U.S. trade deficit rose in August to $53.2 billion.…

October 4 2018

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife America, and Renewable Fuels Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

Issue number 1 – China is very unhappy that President Trump has imposed heavy tariffs on Chinese exports. Tensions have escalated. When I was in China with the Farm…

September 27 2018

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife America, and Renewable Fuels Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

Will President Trump’s nominee for Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh be approved? We may know by the time you hear this radio commentary. I think he will. It would be a sad outcome…

September 20 2018

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife America, and Renewable Fuels Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

Vladimir Putin of Russia wants to raise the age for his citizens to receive retirement benefits. That is what we should do to reform our Social Security retirement program.…

September 13 2018

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife America, and Renewable Fuels Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

I wasn’t going to go down this road, but a CNN discussion and article that I have in front of me should not be ignored. Here is their criticism – they used internal e-mails…

September 5 2018

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife America, and Renewable Fuels Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

The agriculture industry in the U.S. is dealing with a lot of uncertainty. Falling prices and trade wars top the list. We expect our exports to grow faster than our imports.…